avatarDebbie Walker

Summary

Middle-Pause is seeking article submissions from women on topics relevant to their lives, with a new acceptance of personal political stories, and provides specific guidelines for submission.

Abstract

The Middle-Pause publication is actively inviting women to contribute articles that address the myriad of issues they face during midlife, including work, family, parenting, caregiving, and menopause. The guidelines emphasize the desire for authentic stories that inspire, encourage, and empower women, while also announcing a shift to include personal narratives related to the impact of public policy on women's lives. Submissions should be well-written, non-fictional, and free from profanity, rants, and sales content. The publication encourages humor, love, and joy in the stories, and asks for adherence to Medium's content standards and best practices for calls to action. Prospective contributors are required to submit drafts and include specific tags for easier categorization and recognition of the publication's brand.

Opinions

  • The publication values high-quality, authentic storytelling that resonates with women in midlife.
  • Political stories are now welcomed if they are personal and reflect the impact of policy on women's lives.
  • Fiction, erotica, rants, and overt sales pitches are discouraged and may lead to rejection of the submission.
  • Contributors are encouraged to be part of the Middle-Pause community and follow the submission rules closely.
  • The editors are committed to providing feedback and maintaining a high standard for published content.
  • There is an emphasis on building a recognizable brand and a supportive network among women writers and readers.

Middle-Pause Submission Guidelines

We want to hear from you!

photo by Meg Stewart and author

Are you a woman in the middle of your life? Navigating work, family, parenting, caregiving, or menopause? Do you want an oasis of peace? Are you an expert in the treatment of issues that are of interest to women?

Write for Middle-Pause and join the conversation. We are looking for articles that focus on or relate to issues women are facing, thinking about, in the middle of, or those in menopause.

For example, I was going through menopause while raising a biracial teen in puberty, and caring for an aging parent. Think about that scenario for a moment!

We also want stories of humor, love, managing relationships, and joy.

At this point in time, we don’t take fiction or erotica. Rants are a real turn-off as well. (Find a way to tell it as a story.) Non-erotic posts about sexuality are welcome. And if your post appears to be a sales promo, we may have to pass. That being said, if in doubt, submit and we’ll sort it out!

New Guideline on Political Stories

While we’ve shied away from overtly political stories up until now, it’s painfully clear how deeply public policy affects our lives, bodies, and freedoms as women. So as of June 30, 2022, we’ve opened up Middle-Pause to personal stories of those impacts.

We’re talking about first-hand experiences. If you’d like some examples, please see Katie Michaelson’s article, You Just Don’t Know What You’ve Started! as well as Aikya Param’s Supreme Court, My Life, and the Law.

We are not looking for discourses or rants, and will continue to evaluate each submission based on its own merits in accordance with our guidelines and the vision of Middle-Pause:

To encourage, inspire, and empower women to lead fulfilled lives.

This is not personal. If we have to pass on your story, we always let you know the reason and invite you to continue submitting.

Submission rules

Please make sure that the stories you submit to us are free of spelling and grammar errors.

We want your best writing so we can help you shine!

We reserve the right to ask you to make content changes prior to accepting your submission. We prefer posts that are less than 2000 words. If we notice minor typos or spelling errors after submitting, we reserve the right to make those edits. Please, no profanity or erotica.

All submissions must be in compliance with Medium content standards. If you aren’t sure if something violates Medium content standards, please contact [email protected] and ask for clarification prior to submitting to us.

At the bottom of your post, do put a bio with your name linked to your Medium profile and a few links so people can connect with you. You’re welcome to include a CTA and/or links to another story in Middle-Pause — yours or a sister writer’s.

However, we draw the line at pushy or salesy, which we realize is hard to define. Therefore, we encourage all our writers to follow Medium’s guidelines on CTAs and self-promotion. See below:

Before you submit any articles to us, please, please, please read this post and follow its guidelines. If not, you will be referred back to it by our friendly editors.

Also, another great resource for all things Medium is Casey Botticello.

Request to contribute

If you’d like to join the Middle-Pause conversation, please request to be added as a writer. To do this, send an email to [email protected] and include your name, your Medium profile link, a sentence or two about what you’d like to write for Middle-Pause.

Submit drafts only

To submit a draft, first request to become a writer (see above section). Once you are added as a writer for Middle-Pause, click on the “…” and you will see the publication name in your list of publications when you create a post.

You must include one of these three tags: Menopause, Life Lessons, or Women. Also, please include, Middle Pause in your tags so we can build a body of work when people search for Middle-Pause. I believe we are achieving some level of name recognition. Yay!

Questions?

If you have questions or need additional information, email us at [email protected].

We’d love to hear from you!

Peace & Blessings!

Debbie Walker, Meg Stewart, Marilyn Flower, Margie Peterson

Menopause
Life Lessons
Submission Guidelines
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